Chapter Text
Zuko woke along with dawn the day after the world had ended. He pulled himself from a bed he couldn’t remember lying down in, gritting his teeth as the fresh scar on his stomach pulled taut.
Across from the foot of the bed, a set of mahogany doors were shut tight. The tiles beneath them had been earthbent out of shape, warped to lock the room away from the outside world – or, more likely, lock the outside world out of the room.
Sokka lay on the only other bed in the room, breathing deeply in sleep. His leg was propped up, stable and prone, his body supine in a ridiculous contrast to how the other boy usually slept – sprawled outwards like a dog, limbs flailing. On the floor, Aang, Katara, Suki and Toph were curled against each other, bundled in gilded red blankets. It was a disconcerting sight, his friends, looking so peaceful in the colours of his nation, in the very palace that had twisted the young boy who liked turtleducks into whoever he was now. In the low light and the quiet, Zuko felt like the matutinal atmosphere wasn’t just due to the time of day, but what they had just accomplished. It was a new morning for him, and a new morning for the world.
His inner flame grew with the strength of the sun. Slowly, languidly but for the hand clutched to the wound his sister gave him, he shifted his body to the window and peeked through the silk curtains.
The storm had passed. The sky, which had been layers upon layers of crimson clouds the day before, in turmoil – a tapestry of the war, a culmination of hatred, sorrow and fear brought about by the comet that initiated it all – was now clear and blue. Clouds whisked by on a cool wind coming down from the mountains to Caldera. A plum tree stood in the courtyard, swelling with succulent purple fruit.
On the windowsill there was a candle. He lit it with a flick of his hand, admiring the colour his firebending brought to flame ever since he’d visited the Dragons and discovered the true meaning of Agni’s gift. Some days the colour was hardly visible, fickle licks of sapphire swallowed by the overpowering orange of natural fire. Today, it was violet and soft yellow, the colour of the early sun and the plums in the courtyard. He took a deep breath, and the flame rose with it.
Aang was the next to wake. Though rising with the sun did not come as naturally to him as a born firebender, months of Zuko’s teaching had instilled the habit into him. He came to with a sudden gasp, displacing his blankets and Katara’s hand.
Zuko snuffed his candle flame with a brief wave of his fingers and moved over to the Avatar as quickly as his stomach would allow. He settled himself among the haphazardly put together duvets and pillows and he gripped Aang’s hand.
“It’s okay,” he murmured. Aang blinked fear out of his eyes and stared uncomprehendingly at Zuko’s face.
“Is this real?” he asked meekly, unbearably fragile. His big grey eyes searched around the room, draped in crimson tapestries and the proof of their survival.
Zuko wasn’t a very physically comforting person, but Aang was, so Zuko scooped him into a hug. The Avatar clung on tightly. “It’s real,” Zuko murmured, as the young boy’s shoulders shook. “We won.”
*
A week after the end of the world, Zuko sat in his chambers. They were the ones he’d used as a child, though nothing of his childhood remained other than a charred imprint on a wall that he suspected had been Azula at some point in years past. Perhaps a joke, from when she’d at least used her teeth and claws to bond with him.
She was being kept in prison until they could transfer her to wherever she needed to be to heal. He hadn’t been to see her yet. Uncle had, but the old man had returned looking so harrowed and aged that Zuko took the selfish route of sparing himself the pain for a few more days.
He got up from his bed and moved to the door when a flash of movement caught his eye – dark hair, a golden pupil – and without thinking, his hands were alight with scorching crimson and violet flame, his body spinning towards the intruder in the first form of a defensive kata.
His mirror reflection glared back, one eye violent, vitriolic, ready to fight and show no mercy, the other locked by warped flesh into the same indifferent scowl as always.
With shaking hands, he put out the flames and stepped towards the mirror. One came to grip the edge of the cabinet, the other – the left – rose to cover that side of his face. He stared at his reflection until he could imagine his mirror self mirrored once more, the left side the same as the right, no scar to be seen. Something like morbid curiosity twisted in his stomach, a knowledge that what he was doing would just bring him pain, as he settled his brow into an angrier look, searching for similarities between him and his progenitor.
He found them. He ripped his left hand away from his face, finding comfort for the first time in the red, mottled flesh, the squint of his unseeing eye, the shell of his ear. He fell more than sat back down on his mattress, feeling breathless, tears suddenly dripping from his right eye.
Suki found him eventually, cowering there with his face in his hands, and he had no idea how much time had passed.
“Zuko,” she said gently, guiding his hands away from his face and pulling him in for a hug no matter how much he tensed. “What’s wrong?”
He pulled away from her. “How can you stand me?” he whispered hollowly, unable to summon the anger that used to snap and bite when he was vulnerable.
She frowned, concerned. “Zuko, what’s this about?”
“I look– I–” he shook his head, swallowing a painful lump. With quivering fingers, he took her hand and brought it to the left side of his face. She followed unwillingly, curiosity and pity mingling in her eyes. Her fingers twitched as they settled upon the rough, ridged skin there, and he felt 3-year-old shame rise in his gut.
He looked up at her, now that she could see nothing but what he’d inherited from his father, the boy he once was, loyal and naive. “I look like him,” he said simply.
Her compassionate eyes sank into sorrow. They were glued to the only visible side of his face – was she seeing it? he wondered. Was she seeing what he saw – the potential for cold, sharp cruelty in his golden irises, the way his mouth seemed shaped to form a harsh sneer, the way his brow could so easily wrinkle in cold command?
Instead of shunning him, she took the thumb that was on his face and gently traced the half-numb line where scar tissue met unburned flesh.
“You’re nothing like him,” she said easily.
Zuko shook his head wordlessly. Suki took his palms in his lap.
“My mother died when I was very little,” she started with deliberation. He stared at her, unmoored but curious.
“She never wanted children,” Suki continued, “being a Kyoshi warrior dedicated to her craft. But a man forced himself on her and she became pregnant. Instead of shunning me for the circumstances of my birth, she took care of me and loved me.” Suki’s voice lowered, filled with a painful wisdom that sounded far too old to be coming from a fifteen year old girl. “I don’t really remember her, but I have an old portrait, and the older villagers told me what she looked like.”
Zuko stared, suddenly understanding where this was going.
“I look nothing like my mother,” Suki smiled sadly. Zuko squeezed her hands tightly, another tear dripping down his face and onto their intertwined fingers. “It killed me inside when I realised that I take after that scum. I couldn’t help but feel like I was tainted by a man I’d never known. But the other warriors – they helped me see it differently. Even though I might have inherited my broad shoulders from him, or my brown hair, or the shape of my hands, I used the strength in my shoulders to carry firewood and keep us warm at night. The younger girls loved to braid my hair. I use my hands to fight for the people I love.” She smiled weakly at him. “I think that means I don’t look like my father at all, don’t you?”
Zuko crumpled. He fell forward into her arms and she held him gently.
After a while, he swallowed, feeling embarrassed at his breakdown. “I didn’t know you were so wise,” he murmured.
She hummed softly. “We haven’t actually had the chance to speak about much other than the war. But we have time now.”
“Time.” He thought back to the meetings that were planned in scrawling notes on his bedside table, and how he kept waking up in the night with another idea of something he had to fix. “Yeah,” he sighed instead, and focussed on the moment.
*
Two weeks after the end of the world, Zuko lay in the palace gardens with his friends. There was a basket of bread between them and a pond of very happy turtleducks feeding on crumbs scattered among the lilies.
“What are you all going to do now that the war is over?” he asked, gazing at an especially small duckling. It wasn’t able to get any crumbs – its siblings faster and more powerful than it. He scooped it up into his hands and fed it idly. Comfortable in the natural warmth of his palms, it quacked a little at him and closed its eyes sleepily, curling up perfectly in the cup of his hand.
“Man,” Sokka said, “I think I might take a page from Aang’s book and go to sleep for a hundred years.”
Katara giggled. “As long as you find somewhere no one can hear you snoring.”
“I don’t snore!” Sokka squawked.
“Snoozles, there’s a reason for your nickname,” Toph grinned, punching Sokka on the shoulder. Sokka spluttered incoherently in protest.
“I think Sokka’s got the right idea,” Aang said. “I know I still have Avatar responsibilities, but I’d like to do things that I wanna do. Maybe I’ll go travelling!”
“Haven’t you just been travelling?”
All of them looked up at the sound of Suki’s voice. She stepped into the courtyard from the walkway, accompanied by Mai and Ty Lee. Zuko gently lowered the turtleduck to the ground and smiled warmly at them.
“Suki!” Aang grinned, airbending himself up to greet her, all sunshine and smiles. “Yeah, I have, but now that I’ve started I just don’t want to stop. There are still a lot of earth kingdom towns that could use a visit from the Avatar, and…”
Zuko stopped paying attention as Aang continued rambling. Instead, he focussed his attention to Mai, who sat down next to him in a thump of her long robes. She was dressed down, her clothing loose and flowing. It was such an uncharacteristic show of vulnerability that his warm smile bloomed on his face again. She didn’t return it – that would be a step too far – but he could see the fondness in her eyes as she pressed their shoulders together.
“What about you, Zuko?” Aang asked.
He looked up, zoning back in to see everyone looking at him. “Uh… what?”
“What are you planning to do?”
Zuko frowned. “I have to stay here and act as Firelord. I’m pretty sure that will take up my plans for the next lifetime.”
The thought of it made him feel slightly dizzy. He had no way of voicing how unstable he felt – he was stepping into boots that had only been worn by men larger, crueller, and more confident than he, and they simply didn’t fit. How could he ever disassociate the concept of Firelord with the concept of war and tyranny?
“Well, sure,” Sokka frowned, matching his expression, “but Aang’s the Avatar and he still finds every opportunity to bunk off and have fun.”
“Yeah, well, Aang’s a kid,” Zuko dismissed.
“So are you?”
Zuko blinked, perturbed. He hadn’t really thought of himself as a child in a very long time. The thought of the others seeing him that way made something uncomfortable stir in his gut.
“I can’t afford to be,” he said eventually. “I have a lot to atone for.”
The quiet got worse, and Zuko felt slightly guilty about ruining the peaceful scene. Luckily, Sokka’s tactlessness sometimes worked in his favour. He lifted his hands in surrender.
“I’m just saying, you could afford to let loose a little sometimes. If you don’t take a break you’ll burn yourself out.”
Then he snorted, and elbowed Suki. “Get it? Burn yourself out? ‘Cause he’s a fire–”
Suki elbowed him back hard enough that Sokka flailed and landed halfway submerged in the turtleduck pond. He spluttered and splashed, and everyone laughed at him. Zuko smiled fondly, letting the conversation slip from his mind.
That night, Zuko slipped some gin from the kitchens and stole away with the older members of the group. It had been quite an ordeal, especially to slip by Toph unnoticed, but he desperately needed to act his age without feeling guilty for corrupting Aang’s innocence. Even Katara and Toph, despite their individual ways of trying to act older than they were, could be juvenile in ways that made Zuko desperate for the lone company of people his age.
He met Suki, Sokka, and Mai in the corridor. If he thought too hard about it, he could recognise that they were outside the room that used to be his mother’s private chambers. He could close his eyes and remember Azula chasing him down these corridors, the exact feeling of momentary childhood joy. They’d used to play Dragons and Dragonhunters together in between lessons, and it was the only time they’d almost felt like equals. They were pretending to be fire-breathing beasts, yes, but sometimes he thought the real pretense was them acting like they could be a functional family.
But he didn’t want to think too hard about it, so he blinked the memories away and smiled at the other three, holding up the alcohol.
“I thought we could celebrate,” he smiled.
Sokka’s jaw dropped open. Mai just smirked appreciatively, and Suki gasped.
“Is that Pakui Berry gin? I haven’t had that in ages!”
Zuko grinned, glad they’d taken it well. “They still store it in the same place as when we were kids.”
Mai raised an eyebrow. “Well, we can’t drink it here. We need the right venue.”
Zuko’s eyes widened. He’d forgotten about that part – sometimes, on the rare and blissful occasions when his father had been away on a trip, he, Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee would steal alcohol or snacks from the palace kitchens and climb the roof, consuming their bounty under the stars.
They located a trellis, swamped with saccharine scented white jasmine, and scaled it easily. Once they ascended to the top, Suki snatched the bottle from Zuko, twirling around on the tiled roof in the warm summer air. “Dibs first!” she called, taking a swig like a sailor.
Sokka stared at her. “You’ve drunk alcohol before?”
“You haven’t?”
“Nope.” He swiped at the offered bottle, confidently took a huge gulp, and then hacked and coughed for air.
Zuko laughed, prying the drink out of his hands. It tasted like a breath of fresh air. “Yeah, we can tell.”
His plan worked perfectly. Once they were all suitably tipsy, they lay back on the roof, faces to the stars, able to talk about whatever they wanted without censoring themselves for twelve year olds. Zuko loved Aang, Katara, and Toph, but he also knew that they wouldn’t understand why this was necessary. Especially for Sokka – he couldn’t imagine being the oldest member of a group for that long without combusting.
“...and then we both fell into the fountain and got soaking wet,” Mai finished speaking. Sokka had suggested they all share an embarrassing story from when they were younger, and of course Mai and picked one that embarrassed Zuko more than herself. Her tone, when drunk, became only more monotonous and lethargic. Her sentences sounded like one long word. Zuko could see, though, that she was enjoying herself – Mai above all else hated boredom and liked interesting people, so he’d been very sure she’d enjoy the company of both Sokka and Suki.
The other two both giggled.
“Wow,” Suki laughed, “so you two must have been dating since you were both kids.”
Zuko blinked. “It has been ages, hasn’t it?” he made eye contact with Mai, a thousand memories running through his mind. “It’s going to be weird when we don’t need to anymore,” he continued, then froze.
The alcohol was definitely making his tongue loose. For a moment, he hoped no one had caught it, but then Sokka sat up, swaying slightly.
“What do you mean, ‘don’t need to any more’? Why would you stop?”
Zuko cringed, looking at Mai again. She waved a careless hand. “Tell them. S’not like I care.”
“Um.” Zuko bit his lip. Sokka, having scented something interesting, looked slightly more sober. Suki blinked at him slowly from where she was lying on the roof, her hair splayed around her like her Kyoshi fans. “Mai and I never… liked each other romantically. We’re great friends, but we pretended to date because it was easier for us both.” His heart pounded, the confession unexpectedly difficult even though he knew that both Suki and Sokka were bisexual – and open about it with an ease that made him jealous. “We… both prefer the company of the same sex,” he said quickly, looking away.
Mai snorted at his awkward phrasing.
Sokka blinked. “Okay, I still don’t get why you’d date each other, though?”
“Homosexuality’s been illegal in the Fire Nation since before Sozin, genius,” Mai drawled, finally flopping over on her side to face the group. “We both got lucky and found someone we actually liked and who’d be willing to fake-marry us.”
Zuko laughed, his panic dissipating at Sokka’s relieving lack of reaction. “I’m honestly surprised how smart we were about it. We even planned contingencies for when we’d be expected to have children.”
Mai stuck out her tongue in disgust, complete with a noise that expressed exactly how Zuko felt about it, too.
“Damn,” Sokka murmured, for once without a joke. “That really sucks. It’s so normal in the Water Tribe I didn’t really consider it being an issue.”
“It’s one of the first domestic laws I plan on changing now that I’m Fire Lord,” Zuko said quietly, the title still sticking awkwardly to his tongue, “that, and…”
“And?” Suki nudged.
He sucked in a breath. “That, and the age limit for an Agni Kai.”
Now Mai sat up, staring at him. He hadn’t talked about it much with her, even in the time he’d returned to the palace after the Eclipse, because there wasn’t much she didn’t already know. He’d been, frankly, horrified to think about what his old friends saw when they looked at him – his old self? A stranger entirely? – so he’d kept silent about it. Then one day, when Azula had been absent and it was just him, Ty Lee, and Mai, Ty Lee had brought her hands up to squish his cheeks like she used to, teasing, and he’d flinched backwards on instinct.
Sorry, Zuko, she’d said with the whole weight of a guilt that wasn’t hers, and would never be felt by the man who should rightfully own it. Her gaze had lingered on the area of his face that everyone’s always did, but it somehow hurt more when it was an old friend.
He’d felt a familiar flare of anger, but let it pass, his months in Ba Sing Se having balmed his temper (and his months of customer service, too). It’s not your fault, he’d bit out in response, turning the left side of his face away. I know I left as one person, three years ago, and I came back fucked up.
You’re not fucked up, Mai had retorted with a surprising amount of vitriol. Then, her voice had softened. He shouldn’t have done that do you, Zuko. You didn’t deserve it.
It was the most treasonous thing he’d heard her say, up until the Boiling Rock.
Now, she grabbed his hand with fierce warmth. “Good,” she emphasised. “I’m glad.”
Sokka watched the exchange, his eyes flicking between the two calculatingly. “Okay, and now I’m confused again.”
Mai’s expression sharpened despite the hazy patina of alcohol. “You haven’t told them?”
Zuko looked away. He didn’t want to think about that tonight, when he’d just found some degree of relaxation.
“They’ll find out eventually if you don’t tell them soon, Zuko. They’re living in the palace.”
He sighed through his nose. He knew better than anyone how much the servants gossiped. “I know,” he told her. “Just not tonight.”
She must have felt the fatigue in his voice, because she just nodded once, and then said, “Okay, now Suki owes us an embarrassing story from her childhood.”
Zuko let the tension fade away once again as Suki began to speak.